Williams v. Baker
| Decision Date | 01 July 2012 |
| Docket Number | 2:98-CV-0056-PMP-VCF |
| Parties | CARY WALLACE WILLIAMS, Petitioner, v. RENEE BAKER,1 et al., Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Nevada |
Before the court for a decision on the merits is an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by Cary Wallace Williams, a Nevada prisoner sentenced to death. ECF No. 135.2
On August 18, 1982, a grand jury for the Second Judicial District Court for Washoe County, Nevada, handed down an indictment charging Williams with murder, manslaughter, and burglary. Two months earlier, Williams had broke into the Reno home of Allen and Katherine Carlson, got aknife from the kitchen, and proceeded to the master bedroom, where he stabbed Katherine to death. Katherine's unborn daughter, eight months in utero, died from lack of oxygen.3
On the first day of jury selection for his trial (December 6, 1982), Williams entered a plea of guilty to the burglary charge. On December 13, 1982, after four days of jury selection and one day of testimony, Williams entered pleas of guilty to the other two charges - i.e., murder in the first degree and manslaughter. On January 4, 1983, a penalty hearing began before a three-judge panel. On January 6, 1983, the panel found four aggravating circumstances: that the murder was committed while the defendant was engaged in the commission of a burglary, the murder was committed while the defendant was engaged in the commission of a robbery with the use of a deadly weapon, the murder was committed by the defendant for the purpose of avoiding and preventing his lawful arrest, and the murder committed by the defendant involved depravity of mind and torture. The panel found "no mitigating circumstances to outweigh" the aggravating circumstances, and sentenced Williams to death.
Judgment was entered on January 13, 1983. Williams appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court. On February 3, 1983, while the appeal was pending, Williams filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief in the Second Judicial District Court.
On July 19, 1983, the Nevada Supreme Court granted the state's motion to hold the direct appeal in abeyance until the post-conviction proceedings were concluded. On October 1, 1984, Williams, now represented by counsel, filed a supplemental petition for post-conviction relief in the Second Judicial District Court. On November 2, 1984, the district court held an evidentiary hearing on the claims raised in the initial pro se petition and the supplemental petition. On November 7, 1984, the district court denied relief. Williams appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court. On May 29, 1987, the Nevada Supreme Court consolidated the proceedings on direct appeal and collateralreview, and affirmed the conviction and sentence and the denial of post-conviction relief. Williams v. State, 737 P.2d 508 (Nev. 1987).
On September 23, 1987, Williams filed an initial pro se federal habeas petition this court that was assigned case number CV-N-87-471-ECR. The Federal Public Defender was appointed to represent Williams. On May 20, 1988, United States District Judge Edward C. Reed, Jr., dismissed the petition without prejudice. On July 6, 1988, Williams filed another petition for post-conviction relief in the Second Judicial District Court.
On July 8, 1988, the Second Judicial District Court, without holding an evidentiary hearing, denied the second petition for post-conviction relief. Williams filed a notice of appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court the same day. Also on that day, Williams filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the First Judicial District Court for Nevada.
On July 11, 1988, without conducting an evidentiary hearing, the First Judicial District Court denied the habeas petition on the ground that the claims contained therein had already been rejected by the Nevada Supreme Court. Williams filed a notice of appeal. On July 12, 1988, the Nevada Supreme Court consolidated the appeals from the First and Second Judicial District Courts and dismissed them. That same day, Williams filed a federal habeas petition in this court that was assigned case number CV-S-88-928-LDG(LRL).
On June 5, 1989, this court granted Williams's motion for leave to return to state court based on the allegation that he entered his guilty plea to the murder based on sworn statements of a witness who made subsequent sworn statements that the earlier statements were false and were motivated by the witness's desire to earn a lesser prison sentence. After unsuccessfully seeking relief in the Nevada courts, Williams filed, on November 30, 1990, a second amended federal petition in this court.
On December 31, 1992, Williams filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Seventh Judicial District Court for Nevada. On April 20, 1993, this court dismissed the federal petitionwithout prejudice. On July 16, 1993, Williams filed an amended petition for post-conviction relief in the state proceeding.
On December 1, 1995, the state district court held an evidentiary hearing on Williams's first amended petition. On August 15, 1996, the court granted the State's motion to dismiss on the ground that the issues were without merit because they had already been presented or should have been presented in previous petitions. Williams filed an appeal that was dismissed by the Nevada Supreme Court on August 29, 1997.
On April 14, 1998, this court granted Williams leave to file the federal petition initiating the instant action. On September 17, 1999, with the Federal Public Defender having been appointed as counsel, Williams filed an amended petition for writ of habeas corpus, which was followed by a second amended petition filed on May 30, 2002. On May 6, 2003, pursuant to a stipulation by the parties, the court held this proceeding in abeyance to allow another attempt at exhaustion.
On March 3, 2003, Williams filed a state habeas petition in the Second Judicial District Court. On December 30, 2004, the state court denied relief without setting an evidentiary hearing, stating that the petition was untimely and "failed to plead facts which would support a finding of good cause and prejudice." After Williams appealed, the Nevada Supreme Court issued, on December 8, 2006, an Order of Affirmance concluding that the burglary and robbery aggravators should be stricken pursuant to McConnell v. State, 102 P.3d 606 (Nev. 2004). Even so, the state supreme court reweighed the remaining aggravators (i.e., torture and depravity of mind and avoidance of lawful arrest) and concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that the three-judge sentencing panel still would have found Williams death eligible and imposed a death sentence.
Both parties filed a petition for rehearing. On January 16, 2007, the Nevada Supreme Court denied both petitions. Williams then filed a petition for rehearing en banc. In an order entered July 5, 2007, the state supreme court denied en banc reconsideration. In doing so, the court explained at length why it determined that one of Williams's ineffective assistance claims was procedurallybarred notwithstanding Williams's argument that he could demonstrate a fundamental miscarriage of justice.
On September 21, 2007, this court granted Williams's motion to reopen these proceedings; and, on October 24, 2007, Williams filed his third amended petition for writ of habeas corpus. ECF Nos. 134/135. On August 8, 2008, respondents filed a motion to dismiss contending that several claims in the petition are either barred by the doctrine of procedural default or time-barred by 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d). ECF No. 145. Pursuant to that motion, this court dismissed several claims from the amended petition. ECF No. 165. Claims One(A, B, F, G), Two, Four, Eight and Sixteen remain before the court for a decision on the merits.4
This action was initiated on January 12, 1998. Because this action was initiated after April 24, 1996, the amendments to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 enacted as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) apply. See Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 336 (1997); Van Tran v. Lindsey, 212 F.3d 1143, 1148 (9th Cir.2000), overruled on other grounds by Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003); see also Reply at ECF No. 182, pp. 5, 51, 56 ().
28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) sets forth the standard of review under AEDPA:
28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
A decision of a state court is "contrary to" clearly established federal law if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite that reached by the Supreme Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than the Supreme Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06 (2000). An "unreasonable application" occurs when "a state-court decision unreasonably applies the law of [the Supreme Court] to the facts of a prisoner's case." Id. at 409. "[A] federal habeas court may not "issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly." Id. at 411.
The Supreme Court has explained that "[a] federal court's collateral review of a state-court decision must be consistent with the respect due state courts in our federal system." Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 340 (2003)....
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